Hotline Melee
by Red Capote
Summary: AU fic. Based off Hotline Miami. "Here's a question for you...why are you wearing that mask?" Within the busy, energetic streets of Smash CIty, masked hitmen run rampant, massacring the underworld at the behest of their answering machines. The police are on hot on the trail, determined to find answers. However, the answer they seek is buried beneath a haze of neon and bloodshed...


_YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE._

"_Hi…this is Tim at the bakery downstairs. The cookies you ordered should be delivered by now. A list of ingredients is included…Make sure that you read them carefully!"_

_Click...beep…_

* * *

><p>Smash City. The sprawling capital city of the country of <strong>[redacted]<strong>. Once intended to be a bastion of normality and tranquillity by the long-dead city architects, the passage of time had transformed the ordinary block of land into metropolis of vivid seaside imagery, psychedelic heart-pounding culture and intensely powerful summers. 'It is one of the great cultural melting pots of the world', went the whispers on the urban grapevines. 'Tread carefully around the city," said another, "Lest you be swallowed up in its wonderfully near-incomprehensible wake."

It came across with no surprise to outsiders that the city was anything but peaceful—a massive blow of irony to those who could still recall its founding. In fact, the seedier parts of the city were infested with local ruffians and mobsters, most of which made their dishonest living through the lucrative drug trade. Red-light streets popped up like mushrooms in a damp forest. Music pulsed through makeshift boom-boxes at full volume, creating an energetic cacophony of synth, soft rock and glam metal that resonated with the very fabric of the souls of the young generation. Beaches found their golden-white shores stuffed full of skimpily clothed bodies during the many heat waves. The dawn of a new day through something fresh to the table, for at least one person in the city, whether it be a new season of _Married With Children, _ABBA reaching the top of the charts, or a fresh VHS straight from the local rental store.

For all its crime, decadence and debauchery, the streets of Smash City were never truly safe, yet they never reached to the point where bodies started piling up along the sidewalk. The police fought the mobs, and the mobs fought the law, neither gaining any ground over the other. The equilibrium between the two factions kept itself constant, never straining, never cracking.

Life wasn't simple, not even close, but for most it was good.

However, nothing lasts forever. Everything decays and fades into entropy. The fragile balance that kept life so silky smooth and comfortable in the big city was no exception…

* * *

><p><span><strong>PROLOGUE<strong>

**April 26, 1989, 22:05**

Sergeant Fox McCloud, proud and loyal member of the Smash City Police Force and man in charge of the 40th Avenue Police Station, seriously did not want to be working right now. It was not an unfamiliar feeling for him, but tonight it was more intense than ever.

There were a myriad of reasons for this.

Darkness had completely wrapped its silent, velvet cloak across the entire city, even obscuring the moon, so obviously it was far too bloody late for any respectable officer to be up and about. Yet fate had dealt him the short straw and given him overtime anyway. He had typed up a truckload of reports on the brand new IBM PC earlier that day, thus ensuring that his eyes would sting like sea salt on a raw wound. His throat hurt from all those arguments with a particularly unruly rookie in the afternoon. Finally, the coffee had been, for a lack of a more polite word, absolute pigshit. It had never been gourmet, but today something made it taste particularly terrible. Possibly an ominous feeling in the air.

Today hadn't been a good day. Awful could describe it. Terrible was another adjective. Fox had been thinking about it as the hours had rushed down the temporal stream of life; when he raised cardboard coffee cups to his lips in one hand and signed reports with the other.

In some divine impossibility, the last portions of the day had somehow gone from bad to nightmarish. It explained why he was driving a police car down a near-deserted lane, in the middle of the night, sirens blaring like the vengeful shrieks of the otherworldly gods. His normally groomed fur was matted with enough sweat to fill a Burger King kid's cup, his hands felt like raw iron brands on the steering wheel, and something ashen and stony lurked in his green eyes.

He was probably breaking a few speeding limits right now, the small part of his brain not gripped by intense determination tactfully reminded. Unfortunately for that part, he simply didn't care. And luckily, being a police officer let him bend a few minor traffic rules.

"Fox, not for nuthin," an anthropomorphic falcon, who was seated adjacent to the aforementioned sergeant in the front passenger seat, "But exactly where the hell are we going? And why are you driving so fast?"

"Can't talk, Falco." Fox growled, as he swerved around a corner and charged straight through a yellow light, causing a nearby biker to cry out in fright. They barely made it, a fact that Falco responded to by whipping his head around and glaring daggers into Fox's skull.

"Look Fox, I know I'm your second, your deputy, and all, but I want an explanation for why you dragged me in the middle of the damn night!" Falco snarled, rubbing his forehead in sheer frustration. "We have to get up early the next day. Those reports aren't going to fill themselves."

"Later." Was the only thing that came out of Fox's mouth.

"No, I want a goddamned explanation right now!"

"Shut up, Falco." Fox replied, continuing to be as unmovable as an Easter Island statue. "I need to keep my eyes on the road."

"Fox, I swear to god, if you don't tell me where the hell we're going..." Falco trailed off menacingly, "Then I'm gonna kick your ass out of this car and take the steering wheel for myself!"

"You wouldn't dare." The sergeant muttered, not even glancing at his subordinate.

"Oh, alright then. You want a repeat of our first driving simulation back at the police academy? Is that what you want?" Falco said. He prodded Fox in the shoulder. When that elicited no response, he promptly did it again. Then a third time, and Fox's left eyebrow started twitching.

"Okay, fine!" Fox yelled, turning around and gifting Falco an equally intense glare. "We're going to a crime scene, alright? Now shut your pie hole and let me drive this car."

"Was that really so hard? Sheesh. You're never like this." Falco muttered. He slumped back down in his seat and yawned, his irritation slowly fading away. "What kinda crime is making you so damn tense?"

"Murder. Multiple homicide." said Fox. "Down at the Rockwell Metro Station."

Huh. No wonder Fox had been so desperate to drive the pair there. A crime scene as serious as that would need a team of able bodies, including investigators and a few commanding officers. Fox had always taken his job with grit and determination, even during his time as a cadet at the police academy.

"How many people?" Falco asked. There was a slight pause.

"Everybody."

"What?" Falco said, not quite believing his ears. "Wait, did you just say...?"

"Yeah."

Fox swivelled his head around, and for the first time that night Falco was struck by the utter seriousness in the sergeant's eyes. He had seen this expression only once before, and that was when the two of them had been facing the final section of their police academy training. At that moment, Falco understood that shit was getting real serious, real fast.

"You heard me, Falco. Everyone in the metro is dead."

* * *

><p><strong>21:58, 25<strong>**th**** West Street**

_The third floor office was quiet, save for the humming of the bulky personal computer on the desk and the gentle tic-tac of fingers pressing down on an equally bulky keyboard. Fox sat in his cubicle, one eye on the fluorescent screen and the other on a stack of reports on his desk. His mouth was taut in a flat line and his nostrils caught the whiff of a cold brew, which had been resting peacefully on his desk for the past half hour. It appeared uninteresting to the common person, but would've made a technology geek cream his jeans from buckle to knee. The bigwigs of Smash City tended to place a lot of importance (and money) in the police force, which meant that the men tended to receive the latest technology first._

_In this case, it was Microsoft Office and Windows 2.1x. No doubt it would be of great interest to all the nerds in city, if their heads weren't busy being given swirlies in the men's toilets. Fox, however, had been more of physical and tactical type of person back at police academy. So the PC might've been an impressive piece of silicon and technology, but that didn't make it any less boring for him._

What wouldn't I give for a distraction right now… _he thought. A dangerous one. Perhaps he should be grateful that the city was quiet tonight. And perhaps he could get piss drunk and spend the night in the gutter, but that wouldn't make it any less idiotic._

_A phone then rang._

_Well, that certainly solved his problem. _

_Heaving a sigh, Fox ran his hand through the orange fur on his head and picked the phone up. Now, what on earth could this be about, he asked sarcastically? Probably some thug had broken into an apartment and made away with the TV. Stuff like that resulted in hours of paperwork, staying up late and consuming inordinate amounts of caffeine. "25__th__ West Street Police Station," he drawled, "What's your emergency?"_

_"There's a man in the train station." A frantic, masculine voice responded from the other end. "He has a hammer."_

_Okay, Fox thought, this definitely wasn't normal. Could it be a prank call? He dismissed it instantly with a wave of his hand; the man sounded way too panicky for that. Still, with today's youth, you never could be sure... "What's your location? Are you in danger?"_

_"Fuck, he's coming this way." The man screamed, "Make it stop!"_

_"Sir, I need you to calm down and tell me where you are." Fox stressed. Yes, this definitely wasn't a joke. He mentally gave himself a fist on his noggin for daring to think such ills. Just who the hell did he think he was? Propping the receiver on his uniformed shoulder, he groped past the half-empty coffee cup for his pager. From there, he reached for section that let him access the police dispatcher._

_"I'm in the public toilets on the second floor of the Rockwell Metro Station." The man whispered, sounding as if his heart could burst without any warning. And quite frankly, it was a very real possibility. "You've got to fucking come here right now. He's killing everybody!"_

_"Police are on their way." Fox muttered, keying in the last line. Squad 3 patrolled the streets tonight, and could get to their destination in ten minutes. Yet, he had a sinking feeling that his client wouldn't last that long, not in any stretch of the word. Still, it was best to hope, right? Maybe this incident would result in a happy ending, and everybody involved would walk away with their heads still attached to their necks._

_And maybe he would suddenly eject a torrent of rainbows out of his ass and fly all the way towards the far side of the moon._

"_Can I have your name?" Fox asked._

_"My name is Gorman Newman." The man whispered. And then, a sickening, crunching sound shot through the room on the other end of the line. It was as subtle as the Chernobyl meltdown, nearly making Fox jump out of his seat, and probably caused a minor heart attack for the man he was talking to. When he looked back on this incident during an arduous period of case review, Fox would swear that he had faintly heard the despaired, dying scream of two other men somewhere in the distance. "What the fuck was that sound?"_

_"Sir, I need for you to find somewhere safe." Fox replied, his teeth gritted. "Can you do that?"_

_"I locked myself inside the toilet cubicle." The man said. "I think he's right outside this door!"_

_Shit. Of all the worst possible scenarios to occur, why this one? "Are there any windows?" Fox snapped._

_Gorman Newman ignored his question. "Send someone now. For the love of God, send someone over right now!" There was a pause. "Oh god."_

_"What's happened?" Fox shouted._

"_Jesus! He's breaking down the door!" Gorman half-shrieked, half-sobbed. His voice did nothing to drown out the ominous thumps of the sledgehammer, as the powerful iron end tore through a flimsy wooden barrier. "He's breaking down the fucking door!"_

"_Sir, you need to keep calm." Fox said, though he knew that the man on the opposite end of the line was anything but and wouldn't be entering that state anytime soon. Not that he stood in a position to talk—his body felt ice-cold, clammy sweat trickled down his right hand and he gripped the receiver so tight that the plastic coating on the outside was beginning to crack. Just what the hell was going on in there? "Are there any windows nearby?"_

"_No, there are no fucking windows!" Gorman howled, "Since when do bathrooms in train stations have windows?"_

_"Stay calm. Stay calm." Fox repeated, as if it were a mantra. Part of it applied to himself. Remember his training. If he gave in to fear, he wouldn't be able to think straight, nor solve complex problems. Surely, there had to be a way out of this. A path, a solution to the insane murderer that would let Gorman Newman to survive. He took three deep breaths, and began to think._

_But before he could get a word in, tell the man to find an object to defend himself with, a loud crash came from the other end. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. Gorman Newman let loose the loudest, most terrified scream Fox had heard so far. This man was going to die, the devil inside of him whispered, and there's nothing he could do about it._

_"Shit, he's here!"_

_Fuck, Fox thought, as if doing so could magically disperse the crazy sledgehammer murderer into giblets. Fuck fuck fuck. _

"_No! Don't come near me!" Gorman Newman shrieked, crying like a little baby. "I don't know anything! I don't have anything you want! OH GOD PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!"_

_Something heavy smashed into Newman, and Fox could practically see the way the victim was sent flying across the room, before crumpling to the ground on the other side. A heavy stomp across a tiled floor. Two stomps. The sound of Gorman Newman whimpering, desperately praying to a deity he had never ever believed in. Then a swish of air, as the sledgehammer found itself raised high into the air._

_There was a final ear-piercing, petrified scream from the man, two more sickening crunches, mocking drip-drips of trailing liquid that was most definitely not water, and lastly silence. _

"_Newman?" Fox shouted, "Mr. Newman? Are you there?"_

_Beep, beep, beep. Fox could only gaze at the receiver in horror, the emotionless sound of the dial tone now ringing through his ears._

_Something burst inside of him. Cursing, he slammed down the receiver, got up from his chair and bolted towards the exit, pulling on his navy blue coat as he did so._

* * *

><p>The car drove through the streets at record speeds. Squad Three, diligent as ever, had been faster.<p>

By the time the two officers arrived there, Squad Three had already barricaded off the area, setting up roadblocks and wrapping police tape to form an enclosure. Any residents of the nearby buildings, who were inevitably drawn forward by the presence of howling alarms and flashing lights, were turned away by harsh words and the occasional threat of arrest. Despite the dreadful lump in his stomach, Fox couldn't help but nod in satisfaction. It was always nice to know that his subordinates were doing their jobs properly. Additionally, it would make the following proceedings a lot easier.

They parked the car in front of the roadblocks, and climbed out. Instantly, a nearby officer strode ran forward towards them. Falco noted that he was armed with a taser and a baton, both lack. Did Fox order them to equip themselves? If what the sergeant had said was true, it would make sense for the police to be cautious.

"State your rank and business!" The officer shouted, waving a torch as he did so. He stood behind an array of roadblocks, and the light shone directly into Falco's eyes, making him wince.

"Sergeant Fox McCloud." Fox said, holding out his own badge. Falco followed suit. The officer immediately withdrew his armaments. "And this is Deputy Sergeant Falco Lombardi."

"So, what's the situation?" Falco asked.

"Our squad only just got here a few minutes ago, sir." The officer said, as he guided the senior officers towards the crime scene. "We've been busy sealing this area off, as per your orders."

"Have you entered the crime scene as of yet?" Fox asked, crossing his arms and frowning.

"Nossir. The station has been placed in lockdown. The front is sealed shut." The officer said, sheepishly rubbing his head, "Unfortunately, none of us have skeleton keys nor a search warrant, so we were sitting ducks until you came along."

"So if yer saying that, no-one's ever tried to leave?" Falco asked.

"No, sir. The street was near deserted when he got here, as well. Only saw a single car on the road, and that was way far up ahead. Too far away and not of any relevance."

"So it looks like our culprit has given us the slip," Fox said, staring at the entrance to the station. It was a weary and worn sight to see, with its dull grey brick walls, cracked archway and the assortment of faded posters plastered on the sides, advertising long-passed concerts and the like. Then again, it wasn't like the buildings next to it were epitomes of cleanliness or solidarity either. The south part of town was a rotten blight on Smash City's otherwise energetic image. Crime rates in this area frequently soared to the top of the report charts. Drug dealing and gun crime ran rampant in these streets.

"Guess we'll have to break in..." Fox murmured.

"How come, sir?" The officer asked.

"Because I have a hunch that nobody in going to be coming out of there any time soon." Fox replied, now turning attention to the front door. It was a pair of steel shutters.

"Well then," Falco smirked, slamming his hands together and cracking his knuckles. The harsh sound made the officer step back a bit. "Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way."

"The hard way?" the officer asked, confused. Ah, Fox thought, he must be a rookie. Either that, a new transfer and thus not used to how Falco dealt with entranceways and their ilk.

"You're a little too excited about this, aren't you?" Fox quipped, folding his arms.

"Hell yeah, you bet I am. And you know me." Falco said. "Let's do this."

"Hold on, sir." The rookie said, still wearing a perplexed expression that looked like a hybrid between a frown and a grimace "What is he going to do?"

"He's going to take out a skeleton key and open the front door."

"…pardon?"

Still grinning, Falco walked up the stone front stairs, feet crunching on a discarded coffee cup and withdrew a black key from his belt. Eyes narrowing slightly at the dull, metallic lock in the center of the room, he shoved the key in and turned it clockwise. An audible clunk was heard. Then he crouched down to the bottom of the door, and used his strength to hoist it upward, revealing the entrance.

Falco smirked at a job well done. "I never get tired of this." He said. Or rather, that's what he would've said. Because a split second after opening the front entrance, he abruptly stopped.

Blood.

It was the first thing the three officers saw. Thick, red blood staining the floor and streaked across the walls.

Specifically, it appeared to originate from a corpse leaning against a whitewashed wall. The skull, to be exact. It had been viciously split apart, the brain fragments and piece of organ trailing down the shoulders and collecting as debris on the tiled floor of the metro. Nearby him, shadowed under a pair of flickering red lights another corpse lay flat on its back, the stomach and abdominal area having been sliced open in more ways than anyone could possibly conceive...

"Oh, Jesus!" Falco swore, eyes widening. His earlier bravado had now vanished in a puff of smoke; no way in hell had he been expecting this. Fox had mentioned that everyone in the apartment was dead, and he had been to homicide crime scenes, but this level of gore…! The other officer had the same reaction, and Fox—noticing his partner's unusually uncharacteristic noise of disgust, stepped up the stairs in to take a look.

He promptly gagged. No wonder—the smell inside the room stank like the very bowels of the earth itself. The cold raw scent of crimson iron, mixed with the slow decay of the flesh—it was worse than a pit of faecal matter, worse than a thousand sewers combined. The ungodly stench reeked of death and destruction, creeping into corners, penetrating every square inch of the hallway. There was simply no escape from it.

But the three men had a job to do, and they couldn't run away.

"Hey!" Fox shouted, pinching his nose to try and take his mind off the stench. It was much effect as shoving water up his nostrils. "This is the police. Anyone still alive in there?"

No response. Fox's voice simply echoed off the walls, and then faded into dead silence. A cold wind whistled through the empty train tunnel in the distance. Most of the lights were still flickering on and off.

Gritting his teeth, Fox motioned for the trio to press on. After the rookie nearly stepped into a puddle of blood and Falco shot a nasty glare at him, they decided to move with caution, avoiding stepping or touching anything that could be considered evidence. Standard crime scene investigation procedure.

"It's way too late for this shit..." Fox heard Falco mutter.

A trail of part-dried blood lead through an arched hallway and what appeared to the main platform of the station, where the snacks stand and ticket counter would be. Fox and Falco both glanced at each other, and nodded. On a signal, the three men walked through.

Immediately, they wished they hadn't, for the scene of devastation here was magnitudes more vile, more terrifying than any crime scene the three men had ever seen. If the entrance had been bad, well...

The platform was indeed quite large, with several leather couches for commuters, graffiti scrawled on various parts of the walls and a bulletin board displaying the range of train lines that scurried through the nether regions of Smash City, like a pack of extremely quick mice. All of which would have looked rather inoffensive and quiet if it weren't for the fact that this area was scattered with the corpses of half a dozen men. Two bodies lay like rotting starfish, their stained bodies displaying the various different ways in which they had all been mercilessly killed. Bludgeoning via a piece of weighty old pipe. A baseball bat to the face. A skull, cracked open by a fire axe. The weapons lay strewn around the staion, as if a rowdy child had angrily tossed his toys out of his pram.

Only one thing was common: the expression of pure terror displayed on each corpse's face.

Nearby, two more corpses were spread out on a platform, arms dangling off the ledge. The damage was just as bad.

_What is this? WHAT IS THIS?_

"Oh god," the rookie cop whispered, the color on his face congealing into a nasty shade of puke-green, "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Do it outside, dammit!" Falco snapped, although deep down he couldn't blame the officer. He too felt like upending his guts into whatever container he could find. That garbage bin over to the right looked like a good start, and he would've done so if protocol had taught him to never tamper with any part of a crime scene. The deputy sergeant previously didn't think it was possible, but this was somehow beyond hellish.

Fox quickly turned away. He didn't want to spend a second longer looking at the gory sight. Before arriving here, part of him knew that things would be bad, yet even still...!

Just thinking about made his stomach churn, as if it was producing rotten butter. Something foul rose up from deep inside him, congealing in his throat and tempting him to retch tonight's dinner all over the crime scene...

It took Fox a second or two to shake his head and regain his senses.

"You!" he ordered, pointing towards the rookie officer. Poor guy looked like he desperately wanted to head outside, and would vomit himself dead if he didn't. Guess it was time to throw him a lifeline. "Call the investigation squad and a cleanup crew. Tell them to come here as quickly as possible. Force them out of their beds if you have to."

The rookie, who still had one hand covering his mouth, nodded once, and then ran out of the room as fast as his uniformed legs could take him.

"What now, Fox?" Falco asked.

"We check the upper floors." Came Fox's reply. It was flat, emotionless. His gaze was directed towards a staircase at the end of the hallway. "See if anyone's still alive."

"Because they'd still be breathing after all of this shit…." Falco muttered, as the two of them began to trudge towards the staircase, and immediately paused, as half was it was covered in crimson footprints. After some deliberation, they ended up taking a rather wonky and unintuitive climb up, instead of a nice and straight-forward one.

Any hopes or predictions that the second floor would be less bloody than the first were automatically smashed into pieces, as the two men kicked down the door and stepped inside. This appeared to be a separate waiting room and was placed to allow passengers to gaze down at the train platform below. It was crammed of Smash City Metro's official red couches. And of course, there were bloodstains and weapons sprayed everywhere. One poor chap with colourful pink hair, in particular, had his neck twisted in ways necks should never twisted in.

"Fox, take a gander at this." Falco suddenly said, tugging the sergeant's sleeve. He dragged his friend all the over to a row of seats on the side. Like ones on the first floor. That wasn't important to Falco, though. What caught his eye was the bags of powder on the centre tabletop. "You think that's what I think it is?"

"Cocaine?" Fox murmured, peering down to take a glimpse at the silvery-white powder inside the lone plastic bag. It was perfectly sealed, and looked as if it has been suddenly dropped—most likely by the corpse nearby. A metal straw lay next to it. "Guess these guys were druggies, then."

"As if that wasn't already obvious by the amount of contraband in these damn rooms." Falco replied.

"Yeah, but I think they'd would've chosen time in the slammer rather than a gory death," Fox said, as they prepared to leave.

"Really, Fox? Who would've thought? Well, it's good to know you're still capable of clear thought."

"Shut up and come with me."

It was time to enter the public toilets.

"Today has been just peachy, hasn't it." Fox muttered. He grabbed the handle, and swung the door wide open.

There he was: Mr. Gorman Newman, the last victim of the massacre. A short, slightly overweight man of around thirty to forty years of age. Tanned skin, curl black hair. He was clothed in a dull brown trench coat and slacks of matching color. to his word, everyone in the train station was dead, including him. The man was slumped against the backseat of the toilet, an expression of terror frozen like ice on his face. The scene was almost comical. If his head still could be called a head, that is. Whoever had assaulted him had taken deliberate measures to beat the man's brain in as savagely and messily as possible, to the extent that Fox wasn't sure if the remaining contents inside Mr. Newman's skull could fill a jam jar. The walls of the cramped cubicle were smeared with skull fragments and chunks of rotting flesh.

Public toilets were never clean, but they were never as dirty as a ditch, either. This one begged to differ. It was only tolerable in the sense that a regular Smash City summer could be considered merely warm.

Fox gave another deep sigh and moved away from the sight.

"Is that all?" Falco asked.

"Yeah, more or less." Fox said wearily. Suddenly, he felt exhausted. All of the adrenaline accumulated from driving fast had rushed out of him in a single burst, leaving a tired shell behind. He wanted to have a drink or two, lie down somewhere safe and fall deep into a world of dreams. Too bad that wasn't an option in these circumstances. There was work to be done. Paperwork, supervising, co-ordinating investigation and the lot. It looked like it was going to be one of _those _nights. Nights that he would drunkenly complain about in the local bar, on his less sober days. "Let's get out of here."

"Thank god for that." Falco muttered, as the two policemen began the trek back to the entrance._ "_Seriously man,just what kind of maniac would do something like this..."

Fox had no answer. The truth was that he couldn't come up with one. Unbeknownst to him, his presence on this crime scene would be recorded in history, as the match lighting the fuse on the dynamite; kickstarting a chain of events that would shake the very foundations of Smash City.

A storm was brewing on the horizon, of bloodshed, brutality and bludgeoning, and he was already standing at the edge.

* * *

><p><em>Far, far away from the action, where the cry of the police sirens could not reach, a lone man climbed out of his silver DeLorean and stalked down an empty street. The streetlights were off, broken. Darkness and shadows submerged this place in their unrelenting depth, providing the perfect cover for anyone conducting shady business in the midst of the night. This man was definitely on shady business, from the way he stuck to the shadows and avoided the moonlight. Although, the term 'homicidal' would more adequately describe it.<em>

_An apartment block loomed in front of him, like the intimidating figure of the prison guard standing over the recently beaten criminal. Instinctively and quickly, the man dashed into an alleyway, his footsteps making 'thud-thud' noises on the cracked tarmac. Like most nooks and crannies in Smash City, the road was worn-down, littered in various pieces of trash and smelt like the interior of a septic tank. _

_However, the man did not care. His lips were pursed, his brow was furrowed. His right hand tightly gripped across the handle of a bloodstained leather briefcase. He had every reason in the world to be tense. After all, he had just bludgeoned, stabbed and smashed his way through a group of mobsters in the Rockwell Metro Station to get the briefcase in the first place. No doubt the police were already devouring through the crime scene, searching for clues and interviewing any nearby residents. Pigs…they were like flies on newly excreted shit. _

_He strode briskly around the corner, past a pile of used tires and broken bottles. A fire, fueled by discarded newspapers and old pizza boxes, flickered from a nearby barrel. So that meant somebody was living here, no matter how ludicrous the idea sounded? Behind his mask, the man's lips curled downwards. Guess he better hurry up then. _

_He soon found the dumpster. It was nestled next to a rusting chain-link fence, surrounded on all sides by black garbage bags. There was one silver lining through: the dumpster was already open, which meant that he would've have to waste time shoving it open. _

_Cranking back his arm, he tossed the briefcase into the left corner of the dumpster, between a half-eaten Burger King meal and several empty cans of dog chowder. It landed with an audible thump, which rang out hollowly into the open night. Immediately, the man sighed in relief. The job was over. He could relax, go home and destroy every last piece of clothing he had on hand. But before he could do anything else…_

"_Who's there?" a gruff voice blurted out from behind him, "I can hear you! I know you're there!"_

…_so there was one more person to clean up, eh? More bones to bludgeon? Another skull to smash in half? Organs to be eviscerated? No matter. This shithead, whoever he was, would be no match for the mobsters the man had killed before. This would be easy as apple pie._

_He stepped out, to greet the newcomer. It was a stereotypical smelly hobo, clothed in a ragged jacket and torn military style pants. A shredded beanie lay squarely on his bonce, and various pieces of food interweaved themselves with a shaggy grey beard. Most importantly of all, the place where the man's eyes were immediately drawn to, was the fact that he was holding a wooden baseball hat in his hand. _

"_Now just do yer think yer doing in my home!" the hobo roared, grip tight on his weapon. "You've got five seconds to answer before I beat you into the ground!"_

_The man stayed silent. His hands clenched, and he raised them up._

"_Have it your way then!" The hobo shouted, raising the bat up and charging forward._

_Big mistake._

_He was immediately slammed hard into the ground by a single fist. Dazed, he let go on the bat and watched out of the corner of his eye, as the weapon rolled away and hit a nearby trash can. The man walked over, crouched down and picked up the bat._

_Before the hobo could do anything, raise a hand, yell for help, crawl away or the like…the masked man was already standing above him. With a single swing, he brought the bat down onto the hobo's skull. It was funny, to the masked man at least, how the hobo's head split open like a wet balloon. Either the bone was weaken from not consuming enough milk, or his grip was freakishly strong. Either way, brain and blood spilled everywhere, creating a puddle on the concrete. _

_Brushing flesh of his jacket, the man dropped the bat and fast walked over to his silver car. Moments later, the guttural sound of an engine running echoed through the empty streets. Then tires screeched shrilly, as the DeLorean sped out of the parking space and disappeared into the distance._

_All was silent_

_Once again the city slumbered peacefully, without trouble or interruption, awaiting the new day. _

_And what a new day it would be…_

* * *

><p><strong>It's been a while since I actually sat down to write something. I used to have an old account, but I lost the password for that. So anyway, what I'm trying to squeeze out like a kidney stone is that I'm questioning the quality of this piece.<strong>

**Still fun to write, though. Please leave feedback if possible!**

**Oh yeah, Hotline Miami is a totally ballin' game. You can get it on Steam, and I definitely recommend it.**


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